Unfortunately, not all romantic Internet stories turn out as beautifully
as Dennis and Loretta's.  Take the case of my SoHo CL friend,
Nikki Winterbottom.  Nikki is a clever girl who knows html backwards
and forwards.  But she is a bit dyslexic.  She found a Romantic
Board which she thought read "Alternate Desires", and she felt that
was exactly the right place to post an ad since she kept blowing hot
and cold in all her love affairs.  What she didn't realize was that
it was actually "Alternative Desires", and before you know it, she was
communicating with a fellow named Rod who invited her to spend
a weekend at his country place which turned out to be only about
fifty miles from where Nikki lived.  Well, I'm too embarrassed to describe
what Nikki described to me---all the disgusting things Rod was into.
So horrifying was it that I hid the e-mail from both Spencer and Tara.
And I must say it's completely outside my realm of understanding
that she could have gone back four weekends in a row.
 
 

I guess everyone gets their hopes up high when it comes to
Internet romance, and then comes the dawn.  Such was the
case with Fiona McCluskey from East Kensington in London
and Wolfgang Buckheim from Stuttgart.   They chatted so
many times on the Romantics Network and had so much in common
that Fiona invited him to a big Hot Bot costume ball in Chelsea.
This photograph was snapped during the ball after they'd spent
an entire day together.
 
 

At that very same Hot Bot costume party, here is a couple I will call Bebe and José,
 though of course those are not their real names.  I have deliberately altered their faces
to protect the innocent.  Bebe is a Norwegian Community Leader on Area 51 in Geocities.
 José is a soccer player from Conception, Paraguay.  They met at a sci-fi convention in Las Vegas called "Intergalactic Conspiracies" and fell madly in love.  Since they are both married, Bebe decided
the only way they could continue was if José also became a Community Leader in Area 51
which wasn't easy because José didn't even have a computer.  But he bought one, joined
 Compuserve, created a quick Geocities home page dedicated to re-runs of The Bionic Woman
in Spanish and was accepted for his CL training.  It will come as no surprise to anyone
 that  his mentor just happened to be Bebe.  Now, unbeknownst to their mates,
while they are supposedly block watching and judging Phantom Menace poetry contests,
they are carrying on an absolutely lascivious cyber space affair.  I know some people
will say this belongs in the previous section, but as far as Spencer and I are
concerned this is Close Encounters of the Most Obscene Kind, and I'm almost tempted
to write her pastor in Oslo.